Lionsgate Finds Writer And Director For ‘When First We Were Gods’

EXCLUSIVE:Lionsgate has tapped Aron Eli Coleite to adapt When First We Were Gods, a sci-fi pic based on a Rick Yancey short story. The project will mark the feature directing debut of Daniel Askill, a music video and commercials director (Cadillac, Xbox, Sony) whose short film We Have Decided Not To Die has played the fest circuit including SXSW. Alli Shearmur will produce for the studio. In the short story, humanity has achieved immortality, but it is only available to an extraordinarily wealthy elite. While it is very common for people in the elite to marry and divorce, a man conspires to murder his immortal wife so that his mortal mistress can take her place — thus her immortality. Along the way comes the realization that mortality may well render the experience of love impossible.

Coleite’s credits include The End, which Drew Barrymore is directing for Warner Bros, and the TNT pilot Trooper starring Mira Sorvino. Yancey wrote The 5th Wave, which GK Film acquired earlier this year. Coleite, Yancey and Askill are repped by CAA; Coleite is additionally repped by attorney Karl Austen of Jackoway Tyerman, and Yancey is also repped by DeFiore and Co.